Hanging by Threads
by ZDrive
Summary: Raven finds her and Red X are teleported to the next dimension, where Young Justice accuses X of murdering an ally of Deathstroke and Lex Luther to contain a microship. Raven is dying, trying to convince YJ they are allies and get back the chip, X struggles to shun love, and Susan finds herself hanging by threads to her sanity...doesn't want to hurt...to kill...but she craves it...


Okay…new story. I need to finish my others too, so don't go all cray-cray on me, okay! Also, I no own TT, or YJ. If I did, Red X and Raven would be a couple in TT and be mentioned in YJ a lot, too.

Swaggin' Out,

Z

**Chapter 1: Murder**

-!-

_In the 343 dimension of Earth…_

It was light outside. Surprisingly enough. Susan Grace hadn't been expecting that as she sat at the edge of the back of an ambulance. She ignored the sirens and stared down at her shoes, bleach blonde hair, soft and plush, falling over her shoulder. Her dark brown eyes bored holes into the ground. She felt dead to the world. Dead on the inside. She didn't even acknowledge the kind police officer who draped a blue blanket over her shoulders, murmured something sympathetic, and walked away.

Susan never liked pity, or sympathy. It always felt…fake.

But what caught her attention was a dark skinned male, in the stage between a man and boy, with blue tattoos and beautiful matching eyes sit beside her silently.

Susan flinched and edged away. She had never seen a secret agent like him. So noticeable, not even slightly discreet. Power flooded through her veins, but she held back from hurting him.

He looked at her. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, softly.

Susan felt her heart turn into a rock and thump to the pit of her stomach.

She scowled. "Of course you are," she said acidly. She pulled her blanket closer to her and glared.

"I know what it's like to lose someone you love very much," he said. She froze and her glare morphed into a stare of disbelief. He raised a brow at her disbelief.

"I do," he said, rather convincingly, Susan noted. "The love of my life died on a mission." He paused, capturing her brown eyes with his ice ones. "It's against the rules to lie to a victim about your own experience."

Susan looked away. Her eyes were shadowed and downcast. "May I ask your name," she asked in a mutter.

He blinked. "Yes." He said.

Susan nodded, waiting.

"Garth," he finally said. She nodded again, glancing up at him from under her long, dark lashes. "I've never seen you around before…" she commented.

Garth smiled wryly. "You won't," he assured her. "I'm not from these parts anyways, but when I am undercover on a mission and on the streets…" His eyes darkened at such an incredible rate Susan felt her mouth go dry and she stared at him. "well…those are the parts of the street a girl like you shouldn't go into." He cut his eyes to her and, alarmed, she bristled.

"I can take perfectly good care of myself, thank you very much," she snapped. She leaped from the ambulance, throwing her blanket off her back, and stormed away.

Garth followed her, calling her, "Wait! And what of your name?" There was something akin to panic, Susan realized when she glanced over her shoulder at him, in his usually calm and cool, blue aura.

She sighed. "Susan," she replied and walked faster.

Towards the crowded sidewalk with agents.

Now she could feel his panic hit her square in the back without even tapping into his aura. Sheesh, ever heard of control before?

"Stop…Susan," he yelled at her. She ignored him, eluding Garth by forcing her way into the crowd. She wanted to see how her father was fairing, still lying bloody and in pain on the sidewalk. When they had been attacked by the man with the mask of death and fought with her dad, she had been terrified out of her mind, not knowing whether to join in or run. She was saved by a man in a black body suit with a raven on his chest…

"Susan!"

…then dragged away to the other side of the street when a girl with fairy wings and a boy who was a red and yellow blur lunge for her attacker. She could only watch, shocked and helpless, as the man in the dark suit ordered her to stay put before charging into battle as well, a blonde haired girl with another girl in a top hat join in…

"Please!" He sounded near begging, but she didn't pause. "Susan, wait…"

She hadn't seen her father's condition since. Instead, she had then been pulled behind a building by a police officer who had popped out of nowhere and went to an ambulance through an alley. She had let them check her 'injuries' reluctantly as the battle raged on…

And then silence.

The ambulance drove a little ways till it was parked near the crime scene, where police officers and pedestrians came running to either aid them or simply watch them. Either way, it irritated Susan to no end. She had not been able to receive even the briefest of glimpses and was miserable until she good look at her father, face to face…

But if he had been wounded so badly, why not bring him into the ambulance, too.

That question puzzled her, and something niggled at the back of her mind, but she ignored it as easily as ignoring Garth's warnings…just a quick look…

She pushed through the last of the crowd.

Behind her, Garth let out a strangled moan.

Her dark brown eyes fell on the pool of blood leading to the broken, mangled body of the blonde haired, blue eyed man she had loved so much, his skull smashed in.

She screamed and something inside of her withered and died.

-!-

Nightwing groaned and ran his hand over his face. He stopped half way, sniffed his fingers, and held them out in front of him.

Blood, red, dry, and flaky, stained his skin. If he looked closely enough, he could be able to see the details of his pores, only a few shades darker, than the rest of the blood in between. Suddenly disgusted at himself for such a sickening though, he let it drop and wiped it hastily on the side of his leg.

Karen knelt over the body, eyes drawing in every careful detail of his wounds. When they had stepped in to save the guy, the man with the horrid mask had barely glanced up. He smashed the victim's head into the rough concrete, grinding it in hard, and slit his throat clean with a razor sharp, red metal weapon.

An X.

Superboy, in fact, was placing it in a small plastic bag that very moment, only a small portion of the deadly blade, the ultimate murder weapon besides the fists of the assassin, was dry from the scarlet stain.

Muttering a curse, he glanced over his shoulder, ignoring Beast Boy's disgusted gag at the sight of so much blood, and stared over the heads of curious observers to Garth's retreating figure. Miss Martian sidled up to his side and murmured, "Artemis has to tell you something."

Nightwing nodded and headed over to Artemis with M'gan by his side. The blonde archer and the speedster were standing at the corner of the building, faces grave.

Artemis took a step forward and held a small, green and red pulsing microchip in his face. He didn't recoil from the suddenness of the movement. Instead, his eyes locked on the piece of tiny technology.

"What is it?" he demanded.

He didn't mean to sound so harsh, but his patience had been pushed to the limit with the cruel mockery of the masked killer, as well as the brutality of the murder.

Artemis said quietly, "It was in his hand."

"A tracking device?" Nightwing asked.

"Not quite." Kid Flash grimaced and leaned against the wall. His blue eyes pierced the shadows. "It's that and a whole lot more. It can give computers viruses with a mere touch, can be tracked and track at the same time, mess up signals…" He shrugged, eyes darkening. "We don't know much else about it, but I'm sure it can do a whole lot more."

Nightwing scowled. "And how do you discover it?"

Miss Martian spoke up this time. When you were pulling Susan away to safety, the assassin was wrestling Mr. Grace to the ground and cutting open his hand. The hand we found the device in."

Nightwing narrowed his masked eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "So he was after it the whole time…" he mused. "Was he ordered to kill him too? Or was it just an accident?"

Kid Flash growled and sprung from his place on the wall. "Are you kidding me?!" He snarled. "He crushed the guy's head! That was NO accident, trust me."

Artemis agreed, "For once, I'm with Kid on this." She said.

"Was he hired, blackmailed, or did it for himself?" Miss Martian asked. She looked at Nightwing, eyes sullen and grave. "That's just as important as well." She added.

Nightwing nodded. "Okay," he said. He took a deep breath, trying to gain his bearings again. "Let's start with-" He didn't get to finish because a blood curdling, animalistic, primal, raw scream of horror and agony rocketed into his ears and made his heart burst with pain.

He had never heard that kind of pain except in his own mind.

When he watched his parents crash into the floor with a crunch and a splat…

_In the 342 dimension of Earth…_

**BOOM!**

"BEAST BOY!" Four voices in unison howled. The green changeling winced.

Crap.

Okay, a prank, obviously, a harmless little prank, one that made Robin punched the mirror into shards, Starfire kick her bed to the wall, Cyborg to blast a hole in the wall, and Raven…

He gulped, watching as black, cold tendrils slip under the door to the living room wave towards. And Raven…blew up the TV and was going to _kill _him.

Double crap.


End file.
